Bob Lutz Reveals GM's Future
Even though their sales are down 5.7 percent this year, Maximum Bob Lutz told Reuters that GM is doing doing just fine. At the Reuters Autos Summit in Detroit yesterday, the septuagenarian Car Czar revealed "We are looking at the numbers for November and we are making our numbers." Even though he didn't say what those numbers are, he did share the secret of their success: "Some days we are a little behind, some days we are a little ahead and some days we are lots ahead, so on balance to me it looks like we are making track." Uh, except for the days they're lots behind. Anyway, although several industry experts speaking at the summit predicted worse sales next year, Maximum Bob says it won't happen. Or it will. "Next year (will) possibly dip in the first half and then come out of it in the second half of the year so that overall 2008 could be a tiny bit worse than 2007 or a tiny bit better." It must be encouraging for the stockholders to know the top executives in the company have such a firm grasp of the obvious.
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the word 'tiny' is really under utilized when it comes to talking to stockholders about how you're coming up short. he should also try 'tincy' and 'wincy' together and maybe 'eenie' and 'weenie'. "Little" is a word used when adults talk to adults.
I'm guessing here.What I'm sensing is the board and the shareholders arn't too happy. G.M isn't in the best position,gas price isn't going down any time soon.Then the morgage mess. Rick W and his team lost the UAW as a place to divert blame. Now I guess its Rick and Bobs turn to except responsability.Its not like it was a big secret that oil was going to get ugly. G.M can't weather a 12 month downturn in the economy
So in other words Lutz is saying that "they're doing fine" based on the obvious? If sales are behind, then sales are behind and sorry Lutz but that means you're NOT doing fine. Does Lutz even know what happened with GM's 3rd quarter financials? Excluding any special items, GM lost over 1 Billion in Q3.
I'm going to stick my neck out a bit and make a little prediction. Sometime in the next few months we will see GM's reported sales go through a little "adjustment" like it experienced in June and July. I also suspect that when fleet and commercial sales are totaled for the year GM will be found to have changed their policy on "fleet sales reduction" in mid-year. If Bob operated a piece of farm equipment it would be one for the distribution of organic fertilizer. Happy Thanksgiving everyone, Bunter